Today's Readings and Stuff -- Saturday, 01 December 2018

And now we begin for real the countdown to the New Year.  Yes, we have the Solstice and we have Christmas before then.  Great-Niece next door has a birthday, her 6th coming up.  I have one coming up as well, a lot more than 6 I must confess.  Sister-in-law has a birthday that's on Christmas Day.  Then New Year's Eve and Day.  And the new year of 2019.

Brings back a lot of tough memories.  Just 20 19 years ago, we were in the process of relocating across state lines again.  My former employer, once named "the most admired corporation in America", had been sold and the downsizing was underway.  That was a job that we'd moved 600 miles to take up.(and while the building is still there, most of my one-time co-workers, including the three senior managers I'd reported to, are long gone.  As are all of my peers and pretty much all of those who reported to us.) I'd hoped to live in that town in that lovely area, for the rest of my life, but I "saw the handwriting on the wall" and accepted an offer for a new job in a new area (with a $20,000 raise, by the way) and moved into a modest but nice home in a bedroom community about 700 miles due west of our former digs.  I hoped to live there the rest of my life.  Five years later, the new company collapsed when our sole major customer moved everything to Mexico:  that building has been standing empty since early 2005.  I've been through several similar situations since.  Hopes dashed, friendships stretched, and the things we once thought to be reliable proved not to be so.  It causes a person to think about what things are worthy of trust and emphasis, and the things of this life certainly aren't, and have so proven.
Now, having said that, it was that move into that small town that put me into contact with people that I would have never met otherwise.  Near there and in that town also, are persons whose ancestry reaches to some unusual places.  For example, quite a few of those who fled Viet Nam and Cambodia and Laos after the socialists went on their genocidal sprees.  Some from Burma.  More than a few from the Philippines after WW2.  And some from Japan: one of the internment camps that the vile FDR stuck persons of Japanese ancestry was right outside of town.  After the war, some stayed.  And one of the grandchildren of that episode met and married our older daughter.  Couldn't have happened otherwise.  I still hear, at least weekly, from some of those contacts.
I sometimes say that I have contact with persons from all over the world, people I know directly and indirectly through others.  This is just one part of that.  So, perhaps, there is purpose for this.

But it makes for some strange memories, some of them wonderful, some bittersweet at best.  Some of those people I will never see again in this life.  Some I will certainly see again.  Others, probably not.  The Lord put us together for reasons not clear to me.  I know that before this, and all the other moves, I (and wife as well) put in a good bit of prayer time, begging the Lord to make His will so clear and evident that we could not take the wrong option.  We meant it: there were other options available.  We stepped out believing this to be His will.  Didn't always (ever) turn out as we'd hoped and imagined, but perhaps that was His will nonetheless.  That's about our only comfort.


Spending some time today considering the meaning and ramifications of the word "love".  We know, hard as it is to believe, that the Lord loves even me!  That "God is love".  That "God so loved ....".  And many others.  Nearly as miraculous, Wife has looked at my homely face and whispered "I love you".  Wonderful, all of it.  But she's also told her cat "I love you".   She's looked at a bit of china that was her grandmother's and claimed she loves it.  We "love" chocolate.  We "love" that burger, or steak, or soup.  We use the word a lot.   See what I mean?
I don't think that the issue will be resolved, even in my own poor brain, this day or week or year.
But. Jesus Loves Even Me

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Today, we begin the book of Hosea.  This is a big change.


Hosea 1

1The word of the Lord that came unto Hosea, the son of Beeri, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam the son of Joash, king of Israel.

2The beginning of the word of the Lord by Hosea. And the Lord said to Hosea, Go, take unto thee a wife of whoredoms and children of whoredoms: for the land hath committed great whoredom, departing from the Lord.

3So he went and took Gomer the daughter of Diblaim; which conceived, and bare him a son.

4And the Lord said unto him, Call his name Jezreel; for yet a little while, and I will avenge the blood of Jezreel upon the house of Jehu, and will cause to cease the kingdom of the house of Israel.

5And it shall come to pass at that day, that I will break the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel.

6And she conceived again, and bare a daughter. And God said unto him, Call her name Lo–ruhamah: for I will no more have mercy upon the house of Israel; but I will utterly take them away.

7But I will have mercy upon the house of Judah, and will save them by the Lord their God, and will not save them by bow, nor by sword, nor by battle, by horses, nor by horsemen.

8Now when she had weaned Lo–ruhamah, she conceived, and bare a son.

9Then said God, Call his name Lo–ammi: for ye are not my people, and I will not be your God.

10Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured nor numbered; and it shall come to pass, that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people, there it shall be said unto them, Ye are the sons of the living God.

11Then shall the children of Judah and the children of Israel be gathered together, and appoint themselves one head, and they shall come up out of the land: for great shall be the day of Jezreel.

Hosea 2

1Say ye unto your brethren, Ammi; and to your sisters, Ru–hamah.

2Plead with your mother, plead: for she is not my wife, neither am I her husband: let her therefore put away her whoredoms out of her sight, and her adulteries from between her breasts;

3Lest I strip her naked, and set her as in the day that she was born, and make her as a wilderness, and set her like a dry land, and slay her with thirst.

4And I will not have mercy upon her children; for they be the children of whoredoms.

5For their mother hath played the harlot: she that conceived them hath done shamefully: for she said, I will go after my lovers, that give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, mine oil and my drink.

6Therefore, behold, I will hedge up thy way with thorns, and make a wall, that she shall not find her paths.

7And she shall follow after her lovers, but she shall not overtake them; and she shall seek them, but shall not find them: then shall she say, I will go and return to my first husband; for then was it better with me than now.

8For she did not know that I gave her corn, and wine, and oil, and multiplied her silver and gold, which they prepared for Baal.

9Therefore will I return, and take away my corn in the time thereof, and my wine in the season thereof, and will recover my wool and my flax given to cover her nakedness.

10And now will I discover her lewdness in the sight of her lovers, and none shall deliver her out of mine hand.

11I will also cause all her mirth to cease, her feast days, her new moons, and her sabbaths, and all her solemn feasts.

12And I will destroy her vines and her fig trees, whereof she hath said, These are my rewards that my lovers have given me: and I will make them a forest, and the beasts of the field shall eat them.

13And I will visit upon her the days of Baalim, wherein she burned incense to them, and she decked herself with her earrings and her jewels, and she went after her lovers, and forgat me, saith the Lord.

14Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfortably unto her.

15And I will give her her vineyards from thence, and the valley of Achor for a door of hope: and she shall sing there, as in the days of her youth, and as in the day when she came up out of the land of Egypt.

16And it shall be at that day, saith the Lord, that thou shalt call me Ishi; and shalt call me no more Baali.

17For I will take away the names of Baalim out of her mouth, and they shall no more be remembered by their name.

18And in that day will I make a covenant for them with the beasts of the field, and with the fowls of heaven, and with the creeping things of the ground: and I will break the bow and the sword and the battle out of the earth, and will make them to lie down safely.

19And I will betroth thee unto me for ever; yea, I will betroth thee unto me in righteousness, and in judgment, and in lovingkindness, and in mercies.

20I will even betroth thee unto me in faithfulness: and thou shalt know the Lord.

21And it shall come to pass in that day, I will hear, saith the Lord, I will hear the heavens, and they shall hear the earth;

22And the earth shall hear the corn, and the wine, and the oil; and they shall hear Jezreel.

23And I will sow her unto me in the earth; and I will have mercy upon her that had not obtained mercy; and I will say to them which were not my people, Thou art my people; and they shall say, Thou art my God.